Drawing on the board, and on every pupil's screen
James Connolly · · 4 min read
The request was mine, and it was short: I wanted to draw on a slide the way I draw on the Promethean, and have the pupils see it on their own screens. The slide was already on every screen. What I had circled, underlined or crossed out was only on the board at the front.
The first version of the idea did not survive contact with a phone. A slide on the board and the same slide on a pupil's screen are not laid out the same way: a phone reflows the text, the answer box sits underneath, and a pupil reading in their home language sees different words altogether. Ink drawn around a word on the board would land on the wrong thing on a phone. So what pupils get is a picture of the board as it was projected, with the drawing arriving on top of it as I make it, above their own slide, which stays exactly as it was.
Then, once I had used it, I wanted to keep it. A drawing on the board is gone the moment I clear it, and I clear it constantly. Now every board goes into the Folio of every pupil who was in the lesson, including the ones I wiped, with a switch to take any of them out afterwards.
Classfolio's live lessons now have a Draw button. It sits at the top right of the slide you are projecting, and it is on for every teacher.
What it does
- A pen and a highlighter, six colours, undo and clear.
- It works with a pen on an interactive board, a finger on a touchscreen, or a mouse.
- Each stroke reaches the class while you are still drawing it, not when you have finished.
- Your drawing stays on its slide: go back to slide four and what you drew on slide four is still there.
- It works the same way in staff training sessions, as a trainer's board on each trainee's screen.
Why pupils see a picture of the board
This was the decision that took the longest, and it is the one worth explaining, because the obvious version is wrong.
The obvious version is to send your pen strokes to every screen and draw them over the pupil's own copy of the slide. It works on a laptop the same shape as your board. It does not work on a phone, where the text has reflowed and your circle lands two lines down. And it does not work for a pupil reading the slide in their home language, where the word you circled is not where it was, or not there at all.
So a pupil gets a panel headed Teacher's board, above their own slide. It shows the slide exactly as it is on your board, with your drawing appearing on it as you make it. They can tap it to make it bigger, or fold it away to get on with their answer. Their own slide underneath is untouched: still in their language, still answerable.
The board panel shows what you showed the room. The slide underneath is still the pupil's own.
It goes into the Folio
Everything you draw is kept, and every board appears in the Folio of every pupil who was in the lesson, in slide order, just before what they wrote for that slide.
- Clear keeps the board it wipes. If you drew on a slide three times, the Folio shows all three, numbered.
- A pupil who joined the lesson but wrote nothing still gets the lesson in their Folio, with your boards in it.
- A pupil who was absent does not. They were not in the room for it.
- It is stored once, with the lesson, and is deleted when the lesson is. It is not copied thirty times.
For staff training, the trainer's boards head each live session in a trainee's training Folio, alongside their own answers.
What to check before it is kept
The picture is of whatever was on your board. That is the point, and it is also the thing to think about.
In a lesson, a response wall with pupils' names on it, a cold-call name, or one pupil's answer on the big screen is seen once by the people in the room. In a Folio, every pupil keeps it. So every board has a Show in pupils' Folios tick box on the lesson's review page in Session History. It is ticked by default, because most boards are exactly what you want kept. Untick the one that is not, and it comes out of every pupil's Folio.
One limitation to know: a picture on a slide that comes from another website can appear blank in the board's snapshot, because the browser will not let it be copied. Your drawing over it is unaffected.
Trying it
- Launch a lesson and open the presenter.
- Press Draw at the top right of the slide, and draw.
- Look at a pupil's screen: the Teacher's board panel appears above their slide.
- After the lesson, open it in Session History to see your boards and choose which stay in the Folios.
If you teach with an interactive board, I would like to hear how the pen feels on yours.
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